Software configuration management (SCM) is a procedure enterprises use to take care of their servers, softwares, and computer systems. It is like an in-house spa but for assets that are analytics for the business. Jokes aside, Mirat.ai is an automated and modern ITSM tool that offers real-time SCM services for better product & performance.
Occasionally referred to as software change management or IT automation, Mirat.ai’s goal is to provide a system that allows for tracking and comparing modifications made to a system throughout the development process and identifying who made these adjustments.
The goal is to simplify project management, decrease errors, boost traceability, and improve the overall quality of software.
The following are the advantages of an SCM process:
- Multi-User Updates: Many individuals often work on software development, which means that updates and changes occur. SCM enables you to track all code and configurations deployed to production (a.k.a. a configuration audit) and introduces traceability by identifying the contributor who created each.
- Efficiency: SCM increases the software’s efficiency by ensuring that errors are minimized. For instance, you can always ensure that your development and production settings are the same.
- Communication and Collaboration: SCM enables accessible communication between team members, allowing stakeholders to collaborate and improve the product’s quality.
- Platform and Operating System Testing: Ascertain that the program functions appropriately across various platforms and operating systems.
- Change Accommodation: SCM simplifies the process of accommodating scheduling, policy, and user changes.
- Cost Management: SCM assists in cost control and improves efficiency by tracking team members and project processes.
The SCM five-step agenda
The SCM process is a collection of steps and processes aligned together to monitor, manage and validate all the flaws in a project, including its documentation, codes, resources, budgets, and hardware.
SCM is not a one-man army deal, but it is a cross-functional process. People from all levels of hierarchy and services come together. DevOps, developers, project managers/owners, SysAdmin, and testers are all involved in SCM.
- Plan and Identify
The procedure begins with planning and identification. This step aims to plan for the software project’s development and define work with all its challenges and scopes. This step goes a lot of brainstorming, plannings, meetings, and the teams need to establish fundamental criteria of the project.
A component of this process is determining how the project will progress and establishing exit criteria. In this manner, your team will understand when all the project’s objectives have been met.
Specifically, this stage entails the following activities:
- Identifying test cases, requirement specifications, and code modules
- Identifying each component of the process’s computer software configuration
- Gather basic information about why, when, and what adjustments will be made, as well as who will be responsible for them.
- Create a list of required resources, such as tools, files, and papers.
2. Version Control and Standardization
By establishing an accepted version of the software, the version control and baseline process maintains the product’s continued integrity. These baselines can arise at any point in the SCM process and should be formally addressed.
This stage maintains control over the changes made to the product. It establishes new baselines as the project progresses, leading to many versions of the software.
This step entails the following tasks:
- Identifying and classifying the project’s components
- Creating a method for tracking the hierarchy of software versions
- Recognizing the critical linkages that exist between diverse components
- Establishing many product baselines, including developmental, functional, and product-level baselines
- Creating a standard labeling method for all goods, revisions, and files to ensure consistency.
- When a project attribute is defined in the baseline, it compels the implementation of formal configuration change control mechanisms in the event that these attributes are altered.
- Alternate Control
Change control is the process of ensuring that any modifications made to the project are consistent with the remainder of the project. These controls to aid in quality assurance and the approval and publication of new baseline data whenever collected. Control of change is critical to the project’s success.
This stage involves submitting requests to update configurations to the team and having them authorized or denied by the software configuration manager. The most frequently encountered requests are for the addition or modification of various configuration items or the improvement of user permissions.
This method entails the following:
- Controlling client-requested changes
- Analyzing the merits of the modification request by examining the change’s overall impact on the project
- They are making adjustments that have been accepted or explaining why change requests have been declined.
- Accounting for Configuration Status
The following phase is to check that the project is proceeding as planned by testing and verifying against pre-defined baselines. It entails reviewing release notes and associated papers to confirm that the product satisfies all functional requirements.
Configuration status accounting keeps track of each version issued along the process, determining what changes were made and why they were essential. Among the activities included in this step are the following:
- Keeping track of and evaluating changes between baselines
- All change requests are tracked and resolved.
- Maintaining documentation of all changes performed in response to change requests and for the purpose of establishing a new baseline.
- Analyzing and testing prior versions.
- Audits and Examinations
Under audits and examinations, the technical aspect of the software development life cycle is accessed. Audits and reviews examine the processes, configurations, workflow, and change requests associated with building each baseline throughout the project’s development.
The team reviews the application to ensure its integrity and compiles release email reports, notes, user manuals, and installation guides as part of the necessary supporting documentation.
This stage entails the following activities:
- Assuring that the planning and identification steps’ objectives are met
- Assuring that the program adheres to established configuration management standards
- Ascertaining if changes from baselines correspond to the reports
- Validating that the project is consistent with and complete under the project’s objectives.
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Your enterprise can run services more efficiently on-premises or in the cloud with visibility at every level and we can make it happen for you. Surf through Mirat.ai to know more.
